Psychology
A rod shot clean through his skull, and everyone who knew him said he 'was no longer Gage'
In 1848, a blasting accident drove a metre-long iron rod through Phineas Gage's frontal lobe. He survived, still walking and talking within minutes, but friends said the once mild-mannered foreman had turned impulsive, foul-mouthed and unreliable. His case gave the first real evidence that damage to a specific brain region can reshape personality itself.